Politics

[EastStroudsburg13]

At least require licensing for the possession of firearms. And there is no way the founding fathers could have forseen today's world, with the security and technology measures we have. No longer does everyone need to have a gun, since you have security systems, surveillance cameras, etc.

[EpicFailOlympian]

If some madman is on the street is randomly shooting people, it would be nice for someone to pull out a gun to shoot the madman before he kills any other people...

[Kokonilly]

If some madman is on the street is randomly shooting people, it would be nice for someone to pull out a gun to shoot the madman before he kills any other people...

I really hate to jump into the politics thread, but would someone pull a gun on the madman? See: the bystander effect, the Kitty Genovese case.

[EpicFailOlympian]

Umm yea, but that's a person stabbed to death and it's only affect one person.

When one gazelle is separated from the herd and chased by a cheetah, the herd doesn't go back to help their estranged member because 1. they don't want to be eaten themselves and 2. the death of the member satisfies the predator's hunger therefore allowing all the other to survive, promoting the common good of the herd.

Similarly, people don't want to get involved because they don't want to be hurt themselves. Sadly, the 2nd point is true too.

While, in my scenario everyone is in danger. Therefore, it is becomes the common good to eliminate the threat at hand.

It is then in my opinion that the right to have guns, because unfortunately the police won't arrive before everyone that will die, is dead.

[PacificGoldenPlover]

I would just like to point out something from the Gabby Giffords assassination attempt: It turns out, someone did have a gun, but was not at the scene at the time (I would like to say he was inside a Safeway, but I'm not sure). He came out with a gun, saw all the carnage, and saw a man with a gun. He almost shot him. Problem was: the man holding the gun was the guy who helped take the gun away from Jared Lee Loughner, the assailant. I watched an interview of the guy inside safeway, and he said he was extremely close to shooting him.

So, the presence of the gun could have compounded the case much more in this situation.

[Deeisenberg]

If some madman is on the street is randomly shooting people, it would be nice for someone to pull out a gun to shoot the madman before he kills any other people...

With effective gun control we can help make sure that madman never gets a gun in the first place. In such a specific instance where someone has found was to get arms then yes, casualties might be higher. However we could keep the situation from happening all together in most instances. Gun smuggling in this country isn't that common. In fact while the drug trade mostly comes from (or rather through) Mexico, the illegal arms trade primarily originates in the US and heads south.

[andrewwski]

He'd have gotten a gun if he wanted a gun. The guy was crazy.

No system is perfect and gun control can't be either.

We put a lot of time and effort into cracking down on hard drugs, but people still get hard drugs.

Gun smuggling isn't that common because few people would have a need for it. If you made guns harder to get, gun smuggling would increase.

Not saying that I'm against gun control, but I don't buy that this guy wouldn't have gotten a gun.

[Skystrider]

My state passed it's Concealed Carry law back in 1961, a year after my Dad was born. In the fifty years since then our violent crime hasn't disappeared, but neither has the state become known for escalating Wild West shootouts. In fact, I am not aware of any case where one law-abiding citizen shot another citizen who had apprehended a suspect. If any such cases exist, I would love to hear about it.

Fun trivia fact: Private Americans own more guns than all of the world's militaries combined.

[fmtiger124]

So much for not posting in here...but this article was too awesome not to share.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... %2C00.html

[PacificGoldenPlover]

Just curious, what do people think about the new National Defense Authorization Act that says American citizens can be held indefinitely without trial, lawyer, or knowledge of charges if they are suspected of being terrorists?